Company

Since 2011, Medicinal Genomics has been a pioneer in leveraging genomics to build a stronger scientific foundation for medicinal plants and extracts. They provide genetics-based testing to verify the quality, safety, and origin of legal cannabis strains.

Challenge

Employees were paying for business expenses with their personal credit cards, saddling the finance team with manual reviews as well as reimbursement and reconciliation work.

“It took an exorbitant amount of time to document receipts in multiple systems, verify transactions line-by-line, and import all the data into NetSuite,” said Arlene Barbieri, corporate financial controller at Medicinal Genomics. “Those hours should have been spent on value-added activities with direct top and bottom line impact.”

Medicinal Genomics needed a corporate card and expense management solution that integrated deeply with NetSuite to accelerate the close process and restore capacity to focus on big-picture strategy.

Solution

Medicinal Genomics chose Brex Empower — an integrated solution of cards and spend management software — to automate its expense data flow into NetSuite and close the books accurately, in real time. “We set up our direct NetSuite integration in minutes,” said Arlene, who had also chosen Brex while at her prior employer.

“Brex’s dedicated implementation support had the whole organization up and running with corporate cards in less than a week.” With Brex’s intuitive mobile app and dashboard, employees hardly needed training to track their own spend amounts, request reimbursements, or access expense policies. “I told our CEO that the transition would be easy. Thanks to the Brex team, I was able to keep my word,” Arlene said.

Impact

From day one, Medicinal Genomics’ finance team was able to pre-approve spending limits for employees based on factors like role type and location, with built-in controls. And these spending limits and rules apply across both Brex cards and reimbursements, which unifies visibility and streamlines controls for all types of spend.

Customized approval workflows were a fast follow, enabling managers to review expenses by exception and save 10 hours of unnecessary approvals per week. “We’ve drastically reduced the amount of time we spend on card and finance management,” said Arlene. “The increased efficiencies of Brex Empower help us close the month faster, allowing us to scale faster.”

The Brex mobile app has also boosted efficiency and compliance. “The Brex app’s visualized expense policies make it easy for our employees to spend responsibly, which means even fewer reviews.” Arlene said. “Plus, with Brex’s 24/7 in-app support, the finance team doesn’t have to spend time answering questions or overseeing the process.”

Brex Empower and the deep integration with NetSuite have had an impact top to bottom at Medicinal Genomics. “We’ve streamlined our management processes across the board. Our executive, sales, procurement, and finance teams have nothing but praise for Brex Empower.” The efficiencies gained position Medicinal Genomics to continue to advance its industry leadership and grow their business.